Football: start copying peak Messi attributes

Chapter 63 Penalty Shootout
After the end of the fourth round of the league, the match of the German Cup came as scheduled.

Werder Bremen ushered in the first opponent of the DFB-Pokal, a team from the Bundesliga - Musta.

Because it will be the fifth round of the Bundesliga two days later, and the team will go away to challenge Freiburg at that time.

In order to save energy and avoid injuries.

In the game against Musta, Schaff used substitutes and young players on a large scale.

The main players of the team like De Bruyne, Lin Quan, and Fritz are all sitting on the bench, and some of the main players have not even entered the squad.

I thought that the opponent was only a third-tier league team, so it shouldn't pose any threat to them.

After the start of the game, Elia's goal in the 45th minute of the first half after returning from injury seems to confirm this point.

However, after the second half, the situation on the court changed suddenly.

Musta's striker Taylor scored twice in the 54th and 81st minutes.

Not only reversed the game, but also pushed Werder Bremen to the edge of the cliff.

Fortunately, Werder Bremen's young center Phil Kruger stepped forward. He scored a goal in the 85th minute to help the team tie the score.

At this time, Schaff was a little hesitant, the game time was running out, should we replace Lin Quan and De Bruyne and other main players, seize the last time and make a strong attack to see if we can kill the opponent?

After thinking about it, he finally chose to wait and see. He was satisfied with the performance of these young players in the final stage.

And according to the competition system, if they are tied, they will also play overtime.

There are 30 minutes in overtime, enough time for him to make substitutions and adjust.

In the end, 90 minutes of regular time ended, neither side could rewrite the score, and the game entered overtime.

After the start of overtime, Musta's players suddenly played a fast break, rewriting the score again in the 96th minute of the game, and Werder Bremen fell behind again!
Schaff couldn't stand it anymore, he called Lin Quan, De Bruyne and others to warm up and prepare for the stage.

But at this moment, an accident happened on the field.

The players of Werder Bremen were anxious to equalize the score, and were accidentally counterattacked by the opponent when they were attacking.

Seeing that the opponent's forward Taylor received the ball, he has rushed into his own half at high speed.

Papastathopoulos, who was at the back, had no choice but to bring down the opponent. Although he destroyed the opponent's attack, he also paid a heavy price-the referee directly showed a red card and sent him off.

This is good, Werder Bremen is not only one goal behind, but also one less player on the field.

Schaff was a little speechless, he vaguely felt that the team seemed to be losing.

So Lin Quan, De Bruyne and others were all replaced in one breath.

Seeing that the opponent replaced three main players in one go, Musta knew that the opponent was going to fight him hard.

So, they immediately began to shrink the line of defense and continued to implement their ultimate defensive counterattack tactics.

Anyway, that's how they played in the first half, and they scored two goals with this style of play.

Now that they are in the lead, the opponent's offense will only be more anxious, and they will be better at defensive counterattacks.

Seeing the opponent set up the bus, Lin Quan had a very strange feeling in his heart:

In the past, they used to set up the bus when facing the strong Bundesliga teams. I didn't expect that one day someone would use the bus-positioning tactic to deal with them.

Breaking through the dense defense is indeed not easy. After Werder Bremen made the substitution, the players actively cooperated in passing and cutting in the midfield.

But there are too many people inside and outside the opponent's penalty area, and their passes are easily intercepted.

Even if the ball is passed, it is difficult to receive the ball under the opponent's close marking, and there is no room for dribbling and hitting the goal after receiving it.

So Lin Quan changed his strategy and began to forcibly break through and make fouls, winning free kicks for the team.

It's just that this trick doesn't seem to work very well. De Bruyne and his own free kicks were either blocked by the wall or thrown by the goalkeeper.

Seeing the passing of minutes and seconds, the score on the field was still behind, and the Werder Bremen players became impatient.

The fans of Musta at home are even ready to celebrate, just waiting for the referee's whistle.

In the 118th minute of the game, Lin Quan received the ball outside the penalty area, dribbled the ball laterally to attract defensive players to grab it, and then passed the ball to De Bruyne.

The latter did not stop the ball and passed the ball to the space on the left, and the Werder Bremen players received the ball and hoisted it into the penalty area.

The penalty area immediately fell into chaos, with players from both sides pushing and shoving to compete for the top.

But the game has been played for two hours, and the players on both sides have no strength. Although they are struggling to take off, they have not touched the ball.

As a result, both sides failed to grab the first landing point, and the second landing point was controlled by Musta's players. He pushed the ball hard and wanted to clear the siege.

But the ball didn't fly too far. Lin Quan started the ball immediately after seeing the trajectory of the ball. After stopping the ball with his chest, he volleyed vigorously after avoiding the defensive player's attack.

The goalkeeper reacted very quickly, and when he saw Lin Quan hit the goal, he subconsciously made a save.

But the power of the ball was too great. Although his hand touched the ball, he failed to catch the ball. The ball bounced out again and bounced back into the small penalty area.

Because the ball is too close to the goal, the penalty area is densely packed with the legs of players from both sides.

Musta's players did not dare to clear the siege with their big feet, and failed to kick the ball out immediately.

In the chaos, I don't know whose foot kicked the ball and kicked the ball into the net!

Seeing the net shake, De Bruyne flung his arms out in a low-flying motion and sprinted along the edge of the pitch in celebration.

When he saw Lin Quan hit the goal just now, he went forward to see if he could find a chance to make a follow-up shot.

In the end, he didn't expect that the ball actually bounced in front of him, so of course he was impolite.

This goal boosted the morale of Werder Bremen, and all the players on Musta's side were full of annoyance:
Seeing that if they persisted for another minute, they would be able to win, but the cooked duck flew away...

After De Bruyne equalized the score, the overtime match between the two sides ended, the final score was 3:3, and the game entered the final penalty shootout.

This is Lin Quan's first penalty shootout, and while feeling the novelty in his heart, he is also a little nervous.

After discussing the order of appearance, the penalty shootout officially began.

The first player to play was captain Fritz. He was the team's top free throw shooter before, and he was excellent in terms of penalty kick ability and psychological quality.

Let him play first and score a goal steadily, which can effectively stabilize the morale of the army and make the players behind them less nervous.

Fritz did not live up to the expectations of his teammates and the head coach. After he tricked the goalkeeper, he steadily scored the goal.

However, the opponent's subsequent player also scored a penalty kick.

In the second round, De Bruyne played.

He volleys hard into the bottom left corner of the goal. The goalkeeper judges the right direction, but the ball is too fast for him to do anything.

When it was Musta's turn, he saw Millitz's determined eyes and subconsciously felt a little afraid. In addition, he was equalized by the opponent in the last minute of overtime, which made him feel worried about gains and losses. When taking a penalty kick, I worry about the consequences of losing the ball.

Seeing the other party's expression, Millitz immediately guessed the hesitation and fear in the other party's heart.

So he put on a posture that must win, waved his arms, and stared at each other.

The referee reminded Musta's players to take free throws, which aggravated his nervousness.

He shot hastily, trying to hit the lower right corner, but his shot was saved by Millitz who judged the right direction in advance!

This goal boosted the morale of Werder Bremen, and then the third and No.4 players who played successfully scored the ball.

The players behind Musta also withstood the pressure and did not concede more goals. The score of the penalty shootout between the two sides was 4:3.
The fifth player to play is Lin Quan. If he scores this goal, then Werder Bremen will directly win the penalty shootout.

"come on!"

"take it easy!"

Teammates ran over one after another to give him hugs and comfort to ease his tension.

Lin Quan wasn't nervous at first, but after being hugged by them like this, he became a little nervous instead.

He nodded heavily, put the soccer ball on the penalty spot, and then took a few steps back to look at the goalkeeper.

After the referee signaled that a penalty kick could be taken, he quickly ran up.

The goalkeeper watched his footsteps nervously, trying to judge the direction of his goal by his movements.

Unexpectedly, when Lin Quan was about to approach the ball, his speed suddenly slowed down.

The goalkeeper originally judged by his step that he was going to hit the left side of the goal with his right foot, but as soon as he moved, the rhythm of the opponent changed completely. Slowly rolling to the right of the goal.

Although the goalkeeper made adjustments immediately, the ball had already rolled into the goal when he fell to the ground to make a save.

This trick was used by Messi in the penalty shootout of the 2022 World Cup final against French goalkeeper Lloris.

In the end, Werder Bremen used a penalty shootout to win the away game from a Bundesliga team with difficulty.

They nearly flipped over!
(End of this chapter)